This week has really been the pits. I have bought myself an iced coffee AND a lunch salad every day this week. I basically just laid as soon as I got home every night this week. Except for last night when I babysat at 8:00. I mean 8:30. I mean 8:45. I mean 9:15. Seriously, my start time got changed four times.

8:00 babysitting means I can rationalize to myself staying a little late at work and then hoofing it over to the NYU library to finish the syllabus for the class I start teaching on Tuesday. 9:15 start time means that by 8:05PM my eyes are bleeding in the library and I no longer want to read the Amistad Rebellion (not recommended for a group of transfer students to relate to their transition to a new school) or sit in the library anymore.

Word to parents who hire babysitters: keep me at a consistent start time. It doesn't matter that you paid me from 8:00. I could have gone home to see my cats in the four hours that work ended and you actually needed me to sit in your living room while your child slept. Goodness.

This weekend, John and I are headed to Albany to see his family! I think Dilly is starting to resent us because we always bring Mim on weekend trips but not her since she can get herself in and out of the litterbox. Though she might actually relish the silence and the lack of me chasing her around the house trying to cuddle her in my arms all the time. #catlady

Happy Labor Day Weekend to you and yours! Autumn, me and my cardigans can see you!

Last night, my Mom and Dad picked me up from my subway stop and took me out to dinner after they moved Alyssa into her dorm for her last year of college. When I found out they were coming, I called my Aunt Lau to see if she wanted to meet us, too.

My Aunts own their own business and are crazy busy doing something for a show they have coming up (I don't actually understand what they do). You should also know that my Aunt Lau has a GREAT office with the most comfortable couch in America. I fall asleep on it frequently, I am the best guest/niece/god-daughter in the WORLD!

This is how our conversation went:

Me: Hi Aunt Lau! What are you doing?
Aunt Lau: Laying down.
Me: OH! Do you want to meet me, Mommy and Daddy at La Villa for dinner in an hour?
Aunt Lau: I'm so busy!
Me: You just said you were laying down
Aunt Lau: I'll meet you there

Macaroni was had by all...except me because I've stopped eating carbs. Its been almost four weeks. I feel wonderful but seriously I ate chicken and broccoli at La Villa last night. It was one of the saddest nights of my life.

In other news: ITS THURSDAY maybe I will make it through this week? PS I love these highlighters from my Mom...The End.

This week at my job is always the pits. There are a trillion meetings and I feel like my inbox is constantly exploding.

Because of this fact, this week's blog posts will be a little on the short/silly side. Like today's post: A Conversation with Stephanie.

Last night we went out for drinks because it was Monday and why not? Stephanie got some cucumber thing and told me to taste it. I did.

Me: I don't like it...I feel like the taste is getting stuck in the back of my throat...its hanging on to my uvula.
Stephanie: Your uvula?
Me: You know, that thing that hangs in the back of your mouth?
Stephanie: Not your vulva?
Me: No, Stephanie. Not anyone's vulva.

On Monday night Stephanie, Ashley and I went to Linda the Bra Lady to get fitted for bras for the wedding.

You heard correctly! TWICE in under 24 hours, strangers touched my boobs: the bra ladies (ladies! not just one lady!) AND the gynecologist. It was an intense start to the week.

Oprah was correct...everyone is indeed wearing the incorrect size bra. You're probably wearing the wrong size bra by two to four cup sizes. We were not happy individuals...Stephanie was nearly crying.

If you're going to get fitted, I would highly recommend going with your girlfriends, but only ones who are willing to see a little accidental boob. Those curtains do not provide optimum privacy.

I'd also highly recommend Linda's in Murray Hill! It was suggested to me by a friend and they really do have something for everyone (see difference sizes of me, Stephanie and Ashley's boobs for proof!).

Success was had by all involved (extra for me because I convinced Ashley to go strapless) and we all left with bras. I spent a full $150 less than I anticipated I would. Why did I think a strapless bra would cost me more than $200? Because that is what wedding planning does to you. You assume everything is $250 MINIMUM and when anything is less than that you want to kiss the checkout girl and skip out of the store.

So hooray, Linda's! I'm so happy to check "bra fitting' off the wedding list...now if only my dress would get here!

You know, for my yearly situation. Which I haven't done in more than a year (I know, I KNOW its the most important thing you can do as a young woman...so say all of my friends). But whatever, I went, I did it, and now I don't have to think about it for the next 12 months.

Here's my question about the gynecologist. The worst part about the gynecologist is that you have to undress and then redress yourself completely, am I right?

This is what I want: I gynecologist who comes to my home who will see me after I get out of the shower but before I put clothes on. Totally eliminates the getting dressed, take the subway to the office, undress, endure the exam (which isn't actually so terrible) and then redressing. Seriously the world is lucky I put on a bra to go to work but to have to put it on, take it off and then put it on again? I have half a mind to go to the office bra-less. And lets not even talk about what my hair looks like after all the shirt on, shirt off action.

I'm sorry if this is an over share, but seriously. Traveling, home visiting gynecologist. Get on it, medical community.

This weekend Becca, Shannon, Stephanie and I made the very long trek to outside of Pittsburg to see Fallingwater. I decided back in May I wanted to go for my birthday trip and August was the first weekend we were able to schedule it, so off we went on Friday night!

Fallingwater was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kauffman family. They had a budget of $30,000 and ended up spending $150,000!

The house was absolutely incredible. They had a staircase in the living room that led directly into the stream below! You can see it in the picture below.

They don't let you take any pictures inside the house but I highly recommend going to see the desk with the cutout for the swing open windows! Also, the house is a great backdrop to take pretty pictures with your friends!

Two thumbs up, Fallingwater! Seriously though, Pittsburgh is so far from New York City. So, so far. Another post shall be forthcoming about all other sorts of silliness that happened on our trip!

On Saturday, John came home from his week long Bachelor Party at the Jersey Shore...15 hours after I had left for a weekend away. I left him this chalkboard message in our kitchen, and when I came home yesterday, he had changed it for me.

I am so happy to have him home! Dilly, Mim and I missed him so much but also I had to do everything around the house by myself for a whole week! These things included:

-Cleaning the litterbox
-Bringing all the garbage out the curb
-Picking up the mail from the floor where the mailman throws it
-Doing all the dishes
-Carrying the groceries home from C-Town
-AND carrying home the laundry
-Having to find everything I misplaced (which is a lot of things) on my own

Welcome home John, my weak arms are so happy to have you back...have you seen my other hot pink ballet flat?

Earlier in the summer, Teress told me about a book signing with Lauren Graham. We both left the office too late, and I barely got in (standing room only at the back of the crowd) and Teress got shut out. So last night, we were determined to get into this screening, especially since I got an email saying they overbook them.

Needless to say, we left the office at 4:59, jumped on the F Train and were at the theater by 5:15. Where we promptly found out there the sign-in table didn't even open until 6:30. So to Katz's Deli we went!

Have you ever been to Katz's? I had not and neither had Teress, so we were total rookies. Luckily, there was a nice gentleman behind the counter who kept calling us "baby" who helped us out. We split the brisket sandwich and I ate just about that whole plate of pickles. I feel I would have enjoyed the experience more if I had gotten a knish? Overall though, it was a good dinner and ALERT its cash only!

At 6:15 we promptly returned to the theater to find out that they had already started checking people in! FEAR NOT we still got tickets. We were just about the happiest people in the world AND we somehow ended up in the front of the line walking in, so we got great seats!

Teress and I had spent the past two days at work talking about how incredible it would be if they gave us the totes that Kerri Russell is holding in the movie poster. We walked into the theater and there were the totes! We were so giddy, it was like someone had given us gold.

And guys...Teress' boyfriends' name is Darcy! Best day ever.

The movie was adorable! Totally cheesy and predictable, but it an adorably charming kind of way. It was a million times better than the book, and I highly recommend that you grab your girlfriends and go see it this weekend! Thanks to Teress for such a fun night!

One of my New Years Resolutions this year was to be more consciously grateful.

If you ask John and my Mom, they will tell you that I'm always looking to jump to the next thing. When I was in college, I was looking to grad school. When I was in grad school, I was looking to a job. Now that I have a job, and should be focusing on our wedding planning, I sometimes send John apartments for sale. "Think we should buy this?"

No. We should not buy that. I should enjoy planning our wedding and seeing my friends and decorating our house and going to happy hour.

Once, my senior year of college my Mom said something that really stuck with me. It was the end of my Fall semester and I was in typical finals mode: hair on the top of my head, yoga pants, tote bag full of books and paper, yapping to her on the phone as I walked to class.

"I can't wait for this semester to be over," I said to her. "I wish it was two weeks from now and I was home taking a nap on the couch." "Don't say that to me," she said. "You're wishing you're life away."

I'm not sure I really realized the truth of what she said until sometime last winter. I finally felt like I had hit a stride...comfortable in my job, in our new house, in my ability to be a kind of grownup. Things had finally settled down a little bit for our family.

And so at New Years, I made a decision: stop thinking about the future so much and start seeing what's around you. Start appreciating what's around you.

Stop wishing your life away.

And so, I have. Its definitely taken some practice, but I've gotten pretty good at it. When I feel myself having a particularly ungrateful day, I make a list in my head or sometimes in a notebook, of things I'm thankful for. Sunday in the laundromat? Not thrilled about waking up early or lugging my laundry down the block or sitting in the laundromat for almost two hours. Thankful that it was a beautiful day, that there was a breeze in the laundromat (and that I wasn't sweating from the heat of the dryer), for the great book I'm reading and that there was enough iced coffee in the refrigerator for me to not have to buy one.

Being more consciously grateful, even for little things during the day, has really changed the way I live my life. I think particularly it has made me more appreciative of the people in my life and the time I have by myself. I would absolutely recommend making mini-thankful lists in your head during the day. Sometimes my list is only "Hey look at that cute puppy on the corner!" That's it. A stranger's cute puppy that made me smile.

Have I stopped looking at apartments to buy? Absolutely not. But I have made peace with the somewhat crazy floor in our kitchen. But not our lack of a dishwasher. Because seriously, I really want a home with a dishwasher :)

Alyssa feels that I did not do a sufficent job of blogging about all the fun we had while she was here in June. She wants you to know that we did many fun things which included brunch at Applewood AND taking our cousin Bridget on the subway...which is always an adventure!

I also took Alyssa on her very first trip to Fairway! She was confused when I explained to her that there was a deck with a view of the Statue of Liberty out back and she was even more confused when she saw it. "But this is a supermarket," she said. "Right. With a deck with a view! And they serve breakfast!"

"But don't we just need some snacks? Why do we need to sit on the deck?"

"Because we drove all the way to Red Hook Alyssa, so please enjoy the view for five minutes and then we will go get chips!"

We spent a whole day in the city with Bridget looking for my wedding shoes. Success was had times two at our final stop, Kate Spade, where I bought not one but two pairs of shoes. I was only going to get the heels, but Alyssa told me I needed the flats because "Its going to be a long day and a classy bride can never be barefoot". So to the register the flats went as well!

Bridget hates the subway...

We also watched a million episodes of Law and Order SVU and went out with Alyssa's friends who confirmed for me that I am old and cannot keep up 21 year old drinking patterns.

I'm sorry if this week is just a whole bunch of Bridal Shower posts, but it was such a fun day and I took about 9 trillion pictures.

After the party ended, my parents, inlaws and Bridal Party helped us load all of our gifts into three cars and drive them from Bay Ridge to Park Slope. And then they unloaded all the cars in what seemed like under 5 minutes. My Aunt Lau would like for me to tell you that if you are moving, you should hire my friend Ashley who my Aunt says is "incredibly efficient and focused!".

Dilly would like to say thanks for all the gifts too, because she has spent the last four days sitting all on sorts of boxes, gift bags and wrapping paper!

We all kind of stood around for a little bit, but then my parents and inlaws left and off we went to our favorite neighborhood bar, Commonwealth. We really love Commonwealth because they have great drinks, beer and shot specials AND free popcorn that you get yourself out of a popcorn cart. I don't think we'll ever move out of our house because we will never find another bar that we love this much. Is that dramatic? I don't think so.

Needless to say, things got silly pretty fast.

Can I just say again how surprised I was that Tammy flew all the way from California? I was so surprised.

On Saturday morning I woke up and was perusing Instagram (as you do) and I saw that apparently my friends Jared and Stephanie had gone out to dinner on Friday night? Where they ate macaroni and cake? And I wasn't invited. Like NO mention of the fact that they were having a meal together. I spent all morning trying to figure out why they could be mad at me. Had I not shown appropriate glee at Jared's return from his summer gig at a music camp upstate? Had I accidentally insulted Stephanie (we both tend to get word vomit if we drink a lot and we had gone to Happy Hour the week before).

Turns out, they went out to dinner with TAMMY on Friday night. Stephanie and Jared weren't made at me! Needless to say, I was relieved but I only got relieved after I saw Tammy in the crowd of people yelling "Surprise" and bursting into tears.

And these two. They are the same person? Like truly the same person but with opposite parts. Its really the strangest thing to witness. I would like to take this time to recommend that if you are moving, in addition to Ashley you should also hire Shannon and John because they are THE BEST at lifting things. You should NOT hire me and Becca because we just sit there. Seriously we provide zero support.

We were at the bar a long time! Longer than I planned on being there. It was light out...

And then suddenly my friend Moira told me she was going home to Pennsylvania (I hope she comes to Brooklyn all the time now that she realizes that its basically a straight shoot) and it was dark outside? Not like the sun was setting...full blown darkness.

Then I realized I was hungry and so was Becca. This is a picture of us before we realized we were hangry (hungry+angry because of hunger).

So we packed it up and headed to the diner. But not before I stopped a the bathroom and wrote this on the chalkboard wall on the way out. I don't want to talk about the germs on the chalk because I only realize NOW (sober) that it was probably a bad idea.

On the way to the diner, I told Shannon I'd give her $20 to get on the mechanical pony outside the diner. She did. I didn't give her $20. On the way home, I thought it would be funny to get on it myself. Then John put quarters in and it started to move. Below is the video of what happened. All that time where it sounds like I'm not laughing? I'm doing that terrible can't catch your breath laughing.

I think I had been engaged about 15 minutes before I started thinking about my Bridal Shower. I'm not sure why...I assume most recently engaged women start thinking about their wedding dress, or saying their vows, or the lives with their future spouses. Don't get me wrong...I was thrilled to be engaged to John and about our future life as Mr. and Mrs. but somewhere after calling my entire family and finally running a brush through my hair, a thought entered my mind. "I get to have a bridal shower".

I think I've been to three bridal showers in my whole 26 years of life, but I loved them. And I especially loved that only women got to go. I know this must sound terribly old fashioned of me, but I loved that they were women only. And I think for me, my love of these all lady parties comes from the relationship with the women in my life.

I don't say this to reduce the role of the men in my life. I have wonderful male friends, and fantastic uncles (blood related and not). And don't even get me started on my Dad because I could go on for paragraphs...pages, probably.

But the women in my life. I'm sure that in reality the number of men and women in my family is about equal, but I tend to think of my family as a women dominated group. Maybe because we're a particularly loud group? Maybe because I have a sister and a Mom who I consider to be my best friends. Maybe because the women in my life have such big personalities and have always modeled for me the strength, compassion and love for others that I aim to have.

And my girlfriends. Where do I even start? We could start with Tammy who flew all the way from California to surprise me. Or my soon to be sister-in-law, Laura, who has bestowed upon me the best gift I think anyone could give a bride...a sister-in-law to love. Or my friend Becca who I learned how to be a grownup with our very first year out of college in an apartment in Bensonhurst. Or my friend Stephanie who I have a constant stream of dialogue with every day via Gchat, who knows my house better than I do and who lets Dilly snuggle on her even though I'm pretty sure she hates it. Or my bestie Ashley who literally carried me through my last two years of college and who once went to Kinkos for me at 4:30am and who has seen my ugliest crying face. Or my cousin Bridget, who has known me since I was born and who suddenly is turning into her mother and tells me I'm turning into mine.

On Saturday these women in my life who I love so much pushed me a little closer toward wife-dom.

My bridal shower was basically everything I hoped it would be...but a little more because there was a candy table!

If you ask my sister, I cried too much. But honestly I'm not sure what anyone expected from me with the gifts people gave us. Like below where my Mom wrote me a letter and filled a cookbook with her hand written recipes.

This is me exclaiming, "There are three pages for gravy!"

My Mom also made me the most beautiful sewing box out of a Shaker Box with a cross stitched scissor holder...its the most beautiful thing anyone has ever given me.

I was nearly positive that my Bridesmaid's were going to quit during gift opening. Apparently I was taking too long and they were told to speed up the line. As they were shoving gifts at me Becca looked me dead in the eye and said "Thank you so much for being the first one to do this...now we know for next time!"

And my Aunt Kathy made us the most beautiful cross stitched O! I've already put it up in our living room, even though we're not married yet. I love it so much!

Also, I've been informed that this is a lingerie bag and not a pencil case. You should know I will probably be using it as a pencil case.

The centerpieces were so beautiful and I currently have five huge mason jars filled with flowers all over my house. I think I might need to keep them filled all the time!

AND there was even a game! I asked my Mom what the rules were and she said "I don't know, I kind of figured everyone would just yell out their answers and you would pick the winner". Note to self for future bridal showers: there must be a buzzer! So much yelling! Also was #10 really necessary? I had a lisp. It was a bad lisp but incredibley adorable if I do say so myself.

Thank you so much to everyone who came on Saturday, I'm so lucky to have you all in my life. And extra thank yous to my Mom and sister who plan a mean party!